A Greenville-based technology company and East Carolina University's Telehealth Research and Development Group will participate in a disaster training drill today during the Super Bowl.

"Shadow Bowl" will use a catastrophic earthquake scenario for the drill, simulating an earthquake measuring about magnitude 7.5 on the Richter scale, striking the San Diego area about an hour before Super Bowl kick-off. ECU and the local companies are among several other universities, hospitals and public health agencies participating in the drill.

The event is intended to help establish a coordinated response during potential terrorist attacks.

"Monitoring for biological, chemical or radiological terrorism attacks and providing first medical and community response to such an attack, should one occur, is at the centerpiece of homeland security," said Dr. Thomas L. Feldbush, ECU's vice chancellor for research, economic development and community engagement.

"A terrorist attack at, for example, the Super Bowl would endanger thousands of lives and immediately overwhelm both the medical and security communities. In order to deal with these situations, we must be prepared to provide remote help through remote sensing and video medical consults."

For its portion of the drill, Ideations is collaborating with MindTel to coordinate participating agencies, their software, and participating medical centers and other agencies. Both companies are spin-offs of the Center for Really Neat Research.

Ideations is an industrial design firm specializing in information technology in the areas of technological applications and multifarious communication platforms — which is techtalk for finding practical applications for technological theory.

During today's Shadow Bowl, Ideations, MindTel and ECU will be part of a national medical communication matrix linking medical emergency resources and responders. The perimeter of the Super Bowl site will be monitored by sensors designed to detect radiological materials, chemical weapons, industrial chemical hazards and dam failures due to attacks.

The drill will enable participants to build field experience and develop new biomedical technologies and communications systems to enhance collaboration between government, civilian and military operations centers for effective response to disasters, officials said.